connection with this letter.* What little pleasures he had ever tasted in London, he says, Irish memories had soured. Signora Columba had never poured out for him all the mazes of melody at the opera, that he did not sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Peggy Golden's song of Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night. "If I climb Hampstead Hill,+ than "where Nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, "I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on the "little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the 'rapidity of my own motion, that gave an imaginary one "to objects really at rest. No alterations there. 66 66 66 66 66 friends, he tells me, are still Some lean, but very rich; others Nay, all the news I hear very fat, but still very poor. "from [of] you is that you sally out in visits among the "neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the "blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish "that you and she,§ and Lishoy, and Ballymahon, and all * See ante, 39, 40, for the passage here omitted. + Printed Flamstead by mistake in the Percy Memoir, and so repeated by Mr. Mitford, and some later biographers. 66 This expression is in the Vicar of Wakefield. Goldsmith, as I have already remarked, repeats himself perpetually in his various writings, public and private. § Mrs. Hodson, of course. I subjoin the closing lines of the letter, as printed in the Percy Memoir: "To speak plain English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks from "London, I shall spend three of them among my friends in Ireland. But first, "believe me, my design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy "contributions, neither to excite envy nor solicit favour: in fact, my circum"stances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, and too rich to "need assistance. You see, dear Dan, how long I have been talking about myself; but attribute my vanity to my affection: as every man is fond of "himself, and I consider you as a second self. I imagine you will consequently "be pleased with these instances of egotism." [Some mention of private family 1757. Æt. 29. 1757. Et. 29. 1758. Et. 30. 66 66 "of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex : though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few inconveniences; therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mahomet, why Mahomet shall go to the mountain." He explains, that if they cannot conveniently pay him a visit, he believes he must go next year to see them; and subscribes himself his dear Dan's "affectionate kinsman." Poet and Physician,-the ragged livery of Grub Street under one high-sounding name, and wretched fee-less patients beneath the other! He was the poet of Hogarth's print, which the common people then hailed with laughter at every print-shop; he was again, it would seem, the poor physician of the patched velvet among hovels of Bankside; and yet it was but pleasant colouring for the comfort of brother-in-law Hodson, when he said that with both he made a shift to live. With even more, he failed to attain that object of humble ambition. In February, 1758, two duodecimos appeared with this most explanatory title: "The Memoirs of a Protestant, con"demned to the Galleys of France for his Religion. Written "by himself. Comprehending an account of the various "distresses he suffered in slavery, and his constancy in "supporting almost every cruelty that bigoted zeal could inflict, or human nature sustain. Also a description of "the Galleys, and the service in which they are employed. "The whole interspersed with anecdotes relative to the 'general history of the times for a period of thirteen "years, during which the author continued in slavery 66 66 affairs is here omitted, by the compiler of the Memoir.] "My dear sir, these 66 things give me real uneasiness, and I could wish to redress them. But at "present there is hardly a kingdom in Europe in which I am not a debtor. "I have already discharged my most threatening and pressing demands, for we must be just before we can be grateful. For the rest, I need not say (you know "I am) Your affectionate kinsman, OLIVER GOLDSMITH." 66 66 1758. till he was at last set free at the intercession of the "Court of Great Britain. Translated from the Original, Et. 30. 66 just published at the Hague, by James Willington." James Willington was in reality Oliver Goldsmith.* The property of the book belonged to Griffiths, who valued one name quite as much as the other; and the position of the translator appears in the subsequent assignment of the manuscript, at no small profit to Griffiths, by the Paternoster-Row bookseller to bookseller Dilly of the Poultry, for the sum of twenty guineas. But though the translator's name might pass for Willington, the writer could only write as Goldsmith; though with bitterness he calls himself "the obscure prefacer," the preface is clear, graceful, and characteristic, as in brighter days. The book cannot be recommended, he says, "as a grateful entertainment to "the readers of reigning romance, as it is strictly true. "No events are here to astonish; no unexpected incidents "to surprise; no such high-finished pictures, as captivate "the imagination and have made fiction fashionable. Our reader must be content with the simple exhibition of truth, and consequently of nature; he must be satisfied to see vice triumphant and virtue in distress; to see men 'punished or rewarded, not as his wishes, but as Providence has thought proper to direct; for all here wears "the face of sincerity." He glances at the scenes of dungeon, rack, and scaffold through which the narrative will pass, and calls them but a part of the accumulated wretchedness of a miscalled glorious time, "while Louis, surnamed "the Great, was feasting at Versailles, fed with the incense 66 66 66 * Willington, it would seem, from an entry in the register of Trinity College (Prior, i. 253-4), was the name of one of Goldsmith's fellow students in Dublin. + Life by Isaac Reed (Ed. of Poems, 1795), p. xv. Aikin's Life, p. xvi. 1758. Æt. 30. "of flattery, or sunk in the lewd embraces of a prostitute. "Can an Englishman hear this," continued Goldsmith, in a passage which shows with what spirit he at this time entered into the popular feeling of the day, "and not burn with “indignation against those foes to religion, to liberty, and "his country? And should not every attempt to promote "this generous indignation meet at least indulgence, though "it should not deserve applause. Could the present perform"ance teach an individual to value his religion, by contrasting "it with the furious spirit of Popery; could it contribute to "make him enamoured of liberty, by showing their unhappy "situation whose possessions are held by so precarious a “tenure as tyrannical caprice; could it promote his zeal in "the cause of humanity, or give him a wish to imitate the "virtues of the sufferer, or redress the injuries of oppression; "then, indeed, the author will not have wrote in vain." But why stood "James Willington" on the title page of this book, instead of " Oliver Goldsmith," since the names were both unknown? The question will not admit of a doubtful answer, though a braver I could wish to have given. At this point there is evidence of despair. Not without well-earned knowledge had Goldsmith passed through the task-work of the Monthly Review; faculties which lay unused within him, were by this time not unknown; and a stronger man, with a higher constancy and fortitude, might with that knowledge have pushed resolutely on, and, conquering the fate of those who look back when their objects are forward, found earlier sight of the singing tree and the golden water. But to him it seemed hopeless to climb any further up the desperate steep; over the dark obstructions which the world is glad to interpose between itself and the best labourers in its service, he had not as yet risen high enough to see the glimmering of light beyond; 1758. -even lower, therefore, than the school-room at Doctor Et. 30. Milner's, from which he had been taken to his literary toil, he thought himself now descended; and in a sudden sense of misery more intolerable, might have cried with Edgar, O gods! who is't can say "I am at the worst"? I am worse than e'er I was. He returned to Doctor Milner's;-if ever, from thence, again. to return to literature, to embrace it for choice and with a braver heart endure its worst necessities. There came that time; and when, eighteen months after the present date, he was writing the Bee, he thus turned into pleasant fiction the incidents now described. "I was once "induced to show my indignation against the public, by 66 66 discontinuing my endeavours to please; and was bravely "resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning my manuscripts in a passion. Upon recollection, however, I considered what set or body of people would be displeased "at my rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident, might "shine next morning as bright as usual; men might laugh "and sing the next day, and transact business as before, "and not a single creature feel any regret but myself. 66 66 66 66 I reflected upon the story of a minister, who, in the reign of Charles II, upon a certain occasion resigned all his "posts, and retired into the country in a fit of resentment. But, as he had not given the world entirely up with his ambition, he sent a messenger to town, to see how the "courtiers would bear his resignation. Upon the messenger's return he was asked, whether there appeared any com"motion at court? To which he replied, there were very great ones. Ay,' says the minister, 'I knew my friends would make a bustle; all petitioning the king for my 66 66 6 |